December 20, 2019 Weekly Capital Market Update. The U.S. equity indices all continued their march upward on the week driven by positive consumer spending and Trump’s comments about his talks with China’s President Xi: The Nasdaq +2.18% outperformed followed by the S&P 500 Index +1.65% and the Dow Jones Industrial Average +1.14%. A key to U.S. economic growth and a major focus for investors is consumer spending and after this indicator rose +0.4% in November, this uptick added to a string of other upbeat data that overall have helped put a damper on recession fears. For example, other positive economic data includes household spending and business activity, which rose to a five-month high. Also, Trump claimed progress on issues from trade to North Korea and Hong Kong after speaking with Chinese President Xi Jinping. Indeed, President Xi stated that the trade ‘agreement is good for both countries and he looks forward to a formal signing as soon as possible.’ Lastly, another economic engine is expected to start kicking-in after the U.S. House of Representatives (finally) passed the USMCA [U.S.-Mexico-Canada] trade agreement with bipartisan support.

December 13, 2019 Weekly Capital Market Update. For the week, the Nasdaq +0.91% led the market gains followed by S&P 500 Index +0.73% and the Dow Jones Industrial Average +0.43% on reports of Phase One trade agreement between U.S. and China. The deal cancels the 25% tariff on $160 billion of Chinese good scheduled for Sunday while, in turn, China agreed to purchase an extra $200 billion in U.S. agricultural, energy and manufactured products (along with efforts to halt counterfeiting, patent and trademark violations). The Democrat-controlled Congressional House of Representatives finally announced their approval of amendments to the USMCA pact which is a critical trade agreement with U.S.’s two largest trading partners, Mexico and Canada. Also, on the week the U.K.’s conservative party prevailed in majority of Parliament, paving the way for likely Brexit by Boris Johnson (PM).

December 7, 2019 Weekly Capital Market Update. Even after the blockbuster jobs report on Friday and subsequent market rally, the days positive ground was not able to overcome the week’s earlier losses stemming from news China- U.S. trade pace of progress has stalled. President Trump’s scheduled December 15th deadline for tariffs on Chinese goods. For the week, the S&P 500 lost -1.26%, the Dow Jones Average dropped -1.72% and the Nasdaq dropped -1.59%. Friday’s jobs report showed an unexpected gain of a whopping 266,000 jobs for November moving unemployment to a new 50-year low of 3.5%.